Survivor’s Stephenie on Losing USA Network’s ‘Snake in the Grass’

Survivor’s Stephenie Kendrick (née LaGrossa) wasn’t precisely thrilled when she was chosen to be the saboteur on USA Network’s latest competitors collection Snake in the Grass – and that’s in all probability why she misplaced out on the cash.

The three-time participant arrived on the seaside in Costa Rica alongside fellow Survivor alum Cirie Fields and former Big Brother gamers Janelle Pierzina and Rachel Reilly the place she was tasked with secretly attempting to hinder the group from incomes clues resulting in her id.

If she succeeded after 36 hours, she would stroll away with $100,000 but when she was outed as the snake, the different contestants would cut up the prize cash. And sadly for Stephenie, she was pegged as the snake fairly early on.

“I knew from the beginning,” Cirie, who performed a season of Survivor with Stephanie, solely tells Us Weekly. In truth, they noticed one another at the airport earlier than filming started.

“I was so happy,” Stephanie remembers. “But then when they told me the game, then I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m dead.’ Cirie’s gonna know right away. She’s totally gonna be able to tell I’m lying. And she knows a lot about me. I knew there were gonna be clues revealed and all this, I knew the whole game. And I was like, ‘Oh, God, she knows everything about me.’ So I really was like a wreck from day one, even just when the game begun.”

It took Janelle a bit of longer to catch on to Stephenie. “For Cirie, it was the beginning. For me, I kind of focused all my attention on Rachel because she was acting so weird,” the Minnesota native explains. “She was asking me where I lived and, like, we’ve done The Amazing Race together, on separate teams, but we still spent a ton of time together. I know Rachel really well. So she was asking me these weird questions and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, she could be the snake because she’s asking me things that she already knows.’”

Stephenie efficiently destroyed one in all the clues earlier than the group might discover it, and that’s when all eyes had been on Rachel. “I was convinced that Stephanie had thrown the clue somewhere in that swamp,” Rachel tells Us. “So I was gonna find the clue. So they didn’t think I was the snake, but it totally made me look like the snake.”

Janelle jokes, “Everything Rachel did made her look like the snake.”

Still, Cirie didn’t purchase it. “She was so overzealous in being in that disgusting swamp,” the Survivor legend says. “There’s no way the snake would be doing all of this to find the clue about themselves. The swamp was really gross and she would’ve spent the night in there if we allowed her to.”

In the finish, Stephenie, who was on the “hero” tribe throughout season 20 of Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, couldn’t persuade them she wasn’t the snake – and admits she’s not a pure liar. In truth, she discovered “24 hours before filming began” that she was chosen to be the snake and needed out: “I had a solid 24 to sit on it and, like, crap my pants about it. I didn’t wanna be the snake. So they tell me and I’m like, ‘OK, cool. I don’t wanna be it.’ They’re like, ‘Too bad.’ I’m like, ‘No, I don’t wanna be it. So now what?’ They’re like, ‘Nothing, we chose you. We told you the game. You have to be it.’ So that was like a whole thing for me.”

She broke down crying at one level throughout filming. “You guys were on to me. Rachel’s yelling at me. We’re arguing. I’m gaslighting. I was trying to argue back and I’m like more of the peacemaker in my family,” Stephenie explains. “I’m not really the arguer, unless I’m really backed into a corner. So I was trying to go back and not look so defensive at the same time. And then at one point, I just like had, I walked away and I lost it. It’s so freaking hard. I’m not really a good liar to begin with.”

Snake in the Grass airs on USA Network Mondays at 11 p.m. ET/PT.